Briony's Spiced Carrot Cake

Ingredients

Cake

• 320g carrots, grated
• 70g walnuts, chopped
• 30g pistachios, chopped
• 100g raisins
• 300g plain flour
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp allspice
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp salt
• 300ml vegetable oil
• 5 medium eggs
• 1 tsp orange zest
• Juice of half orange
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 200g golden caster sugar
• 200g light brown sugar

Icing

• 250g unsalted butter, softened
• 500g icing sugar
• 1.5 tsp orange extract
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp allspice
• ¼ tsp ginger
• Splash of milk

Decoration

• 8 walnut halves
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 2 tsp cinnamon

Method

1. Oven on to 180°C. Grease and line 3 x 6 inch tins.

3. In bowl, add oil, eggs, zest, juice, vanilla extract and sugars. Mix.

4. In another bowl, add flour, bicarb, cinnamon, allspice, ginger and salt. Mix.

5. Tip flour mixture into oil mixture. Mix. Add carrots, nuts and raisins. Mix. Divide into tins.

6. Bake for 35-40 minutes until skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool.

8. Make icing. Beat butter in stand mixer until light and smooth. Sift icing sugar, cinnamon, allspice and ginger into bowl. Add icing sugar in 2 batches. Mix well each time. Add orange extract. Mix. Add splash of milk to loosen icing.

10. Add ? of icing into large piping bag (you can do this with a palette knife instead). Cut 2cm hole in piping bag. Place one cake on plate. Pipe on icing. Level with palette knife. Put next cake on. Repeat.

11. Pipe icing around side of cake and on top. Smooth with palette knife or cake scraper.

12. Put remaining icing in piping bag with star nozzle. Pipe stars on top. Place walnut half in each star on top of cake. Sprinkle over zest and cinnamon.